Bill Gates Can Kiss My Big Hairy White Ass

It's been busy busy busy at Casa de Cheeky. For the last few days The Girls were in town, promising endless hours of the hard-lovin' only Cheeky's cousins can give. This week I'll be at a conference for three days, and several luminaries from my company are making a rare appearance in New York for this boondoggle golden opportunity to improve our offering. We've spent numerous hours removing stickers from furniture and body parts around our apartment (a small price to pay to for shockingly effective toddler entertainment) and are working feverishly to get Oodgie's business up and running (I know I keep hinting at this, but I promised not to reveal it officially until just the right moment). It's 11:15 and I should be in bed, getting my beauty sleep and recharging my batteries.

Instead, I'm reformatting our family computer. For the second time today.

(At this moment I'm forced to pause, reconsider any urges I have to thrust my index finger into my optic nerve or crush the keyboard beneath my tiny, squarish feet. Only because either would wake Cheeky and give her something else to try to eat.)

Our computer has been lumbering towards obsolescence for well over a year now. You'd hit the START button, go make a sandwich, and by the time you'd eaten half of it the menu would appear. I had to stop using some programs--like e-mail and minesweeper--altogether because they were too "resource-intensive" (which is tech-speak for "that which makes the fan on your hard-drive gasp and wheeze", like playing World of Warcraft on a VIC-20). I was ready to give up and buy a new one (with money from some as yet unhatched scheme involving blackmail and/or kidnapping of one of the Bush twins) but I decided to suck it up, format the damn thing, and see if I couldn't breathe new life into the old thing.

For a few hours there, I thought I had it. Everything was working great! I reloaded the whole operating system, and it was cruising. I downloaded all the updates necessary to get the computer up to snuff with all the newestgizmos and security protection. I even took a break to watch Family Guy while the final update--the enigmatically named "Service Pack 2" from Microsoft--installed. Ah, how relaxing it was to know that not all technology was doomed to failure.

Wrong. WRONG!

I walked back in to find my computer in an endless loop, failing to launch Windows, rebooting, flashing an instantaneous blue screen, and periodically turning off the keyboard in an attempt to make me throw it out the window. It hissed and spit at me as that final update ate away at it's insides, chewing up code and giving me the binary equivalent of the finger.

This is NOT a result of user-error. I had that damn update on the hobbled version of my computer this morning, and at least I could get a pulse. This is a malicious assault from Redmond, specifically designed to foil me and me alone. Cyber-terrorism! Where's Homeland Security!?!

(By the way, why do computer companies tell you to "just visit our website" or "download the latest patch" when YOUR COMPUTER ISN'T WORKING? If I could get to your damn site do you think I'd be calling you? And don't you EVER ask me if I rebooted again, you pencil-necked little shit. I'm not one of those idiots who thinks their mouse is a foot-pedal, you know.)

And while I was typing the above paragraph, the second attempt to reinstall Windows failed, I assume because of a fail-safe to prevent me from maintaining a shred of sanity pirating the software which everybody on the planet already has and I wouldn't be needing if the damn thing worked right the first time. GAH!

The only reason I'm able to share this with you is because I had the foresight to buy a Mac last year as the stumbling beast looked more and more like an endangered species. Now I'm staring at the dead hulk in the other room--which this morning was on life support but alive, and earlier this evening looked like it would at least be playing murderball, if not full-contact rugby--and calculating the likelihood of getting the leaders of Microsoft and HP alone on an island where some black smoke and a mysterious band of "others" can wreak havoc on their psyches.

In the meantime, if any of you have any functioning computers lying around you'd be willing to share, I'm taking offers. I need something else to smash.

Comments

If your using Windows don't have a Dell you will have problems. Me and some other geek friends use only Dell and never have probs. But A few months I joined the Mac club, Imac and a Macbook, and have never been happier. I don't understand why people are still using a PC when you can have a Mac and use parallels for Windows. Works perfectly! How about doing that instead, my fearless IT Guru:-))

Ok, sir? Can I ask you to shutdown your computer and remove all peripherals except for the keyboard and the subwoofer for your soundsystem. Ok, now let's power back up and press F2, F5, F7, and F12 while holding down Ctrl and the Shift keys - that's ok, you might want to have someone come in and help you with that one - I have 12 fingers so it's a little easier for me. Ok, let's go ahead and log in in Fail Safe Mode - yes, that is just an ironic term isn't it? Those guys who do the coding have a really great sense of humor. Ok, now turn your printer on. Huh? I told you to keep that attached - how else would you print out a SysConfig? Sigh. Well, we'll just have to start all over. Ok, press Page Up, Page Down, Scroll Lock, Left Arrow, Right Arrow, Tab, tab, Left Arrow, Space Bar - you should now have infinite lives and infinite ammo and be in God mode.....

While you're cursing Microsoft, send one out to AOL too. I tried to post a reply twice on AOL and the damn thing crashed! Sone ofa Biach! Well, piss on AOL and hello Mozilla! Horay!

Now, as I was going to say originally, just go snag the Comadore from Mom & Dad's basement. Think of all the wonderful nostalgia you can play with? And DOS is a wonderful thing. You won't have to worry about Windows at all! Ah Comadore....what would my childhood have been without you?

I love my mac and i'll recomend it to everyone. However I realize that doesn't help you in the moment. I've never understood the whole, please visit us on our website....yes if my computer was doing what it was supposed to (or my internet at my house) I'd gladly do that. But i it was, I wouldn't exactly need ot call you and spend two hours on the phone listening to you tell me every 15 seconds to get faster service online.

We have a friend who works for MS. Knowing I am an Apple user she gave me an "I had breakfast with Bill Gates" t-shirt as some kind of joke. Now people accost me and ask "What was he like?" and I tell them "He didn't use a fork."

As an aside, I'd rather see MetroDad's mom in a brothel than on a Windows PC too. I was just telling Mo this morning...

You have my deepest sympathies. I love my Mac. I am quite bitter that I had to recently get a pc laptop. I am not able to access my company's intranet via a Mac (CRAZY!) As a result, the Mac sits in my office, not getting as much action as it used to get.